Feature request: APA compliancy checker + more custom columns

juhani_suhonen

Hello; would it be possible to include compliancy checker for chosen citation style? For example, if APA 6th is selected in preferences, Zotero would highlight the empty (or non-compliant) fields with red shading?

In addition, it would be useful if Zotero allows creation of custom columns. With that, Zotero could be better used as literature system (user could type in instruments, variables, results, and categorization data for custom fields and then use Zotero's information for meta-study analysis)

adamsmith

We talked about compliance checking, but the way citation styles are built, they can't actually tell Zotero which fields are required (and in many cases, the fields are only required _when they exist_ anyway), so that's a no.

Custom fields are generally planned, but I think what you have in mind is starting to stretch Zotero further than it probably should go. Zotero can't really double as a spreadsheet/data analysis software

bwiernik

For what you are asking for regarding meta-analysis, I recommend using tags. That is how I do it in my own research.

adamsmith

@bwiernik -- any progress writing this up?

bwiernik

@adamsmith Working on it slowly. New faculty job with teaching prep and family issues eating up a lot of writing time.

juhani_suhonen

@adamsmith thanks for quick answer! Ok, I see.. would one possibility (regarding to the citations) that user could set preferences "Important" fields which would then be highlighted if missing?

Regarding to the tags; that's a good idea @bwiernik and I agree with @adamsmith that the purpose of Zotero is not to replace full fledged data analysis software. A couple of ideas/questions though:

a) when I export the library (to CSV) tags do not seem to be included; is this on purpose?

b) I noticed there is KEY column in export data. Can this be used as unique identifier of the item in Zotero (and can I somehow open that article directly with command line, e.g. Zotero.exe ) ?

thank you in advance!

kirk86

The custom columns can also be used to alleviate some tedious tasks one has to in order to display very simple but essential information in order to be more productive. For instance let's take Bibdesk for comparison with which I'm quite familiar. It allows for custom columns and it also allows for the type of column you like. I mainly use them to rate articles using stars from 1 to 5 and also to indicate read articles using a checkbox. Sounds simple but so essential in order to have this birds-eye view on what you have accomplished or not, plus you later sort things based on these columns. Now the only way to achieve having read papers in zotero is to use custom tags which is not that ideal if you ask me. I'd like to use tags to indicate broader concepts to which an article is attached to and not to indicate whether it's read of not.